Video: N. Pipes, Mandolin ..... & Dogs!

[Ptarmigan]

Inspired by a video recently posted on your facebook page, of Pipers playing on top of a Hill, here's a short video I created today on iMovie, on my new iMac ...... [thanks Santa!].

It's an audio clip of Sam Fleming playing N. Pipes with myself on Mandolin playing three well known tunes. We recorded this set in Sam's kitchen a few years ago & the video also features a few photos of Sam, plus some video clips of my three Terriers on our regular walks across the Antrim Hills.

Sam Fleming

Cheers,
Dick

[Barry Say]

Thank you for the posting, I found the video very enjoyable. The tunes played are certainly very common in the Northumbrian piping community but are certainly not 'traditional' in the sense of Peacock's Parlour.

Jimmy Allan is now reckoned to be a transposed version of The Reel of Tullochgoram which was collected by Ian Powrie in 1936-ish and is still well known by that name in the Aberdeen area (or so I have been told). It does not appear in the Northumbrian repertoire until the 1950s - I suspect Jack Armstrong

Salmon Tails up the Water appeared in the Northumbrian Pipers' Society Tunebook which was published in 1936 and was probably introduced as a result of an initiative by the committee to "find suitable tunes for the pipes" - such as 'Summer is I cumen in.'

Winster Galop is a Derbyshire Morris tune.

There is absolutely no reason why these tunes should not be played on the pipes, but to my mind they do not respond well to a very detached style of playing, and I for one would not recommend them to any beginners who seriously wished to pursue a 'Clough style' on NSP.

When we play the pipes, we all bring a certain amount of baggage from our past experience which influences the way we approach the music. This is unavoidable and indeed is one of the delights of 'traditional' music.

Barry

[Francis Wood]

Well we all mount our baggage in our own way. I think Winster Galop needs a very detached rendering. In itself it's a fairly boring tune but capable of being played crisply and wittily.

Francis

[adrian]

Winster Gallop. A rather nice tune when played in A minor.

[John Gibbons]

It sounds even spookier in the second half with a, g sharp, f natural, e in the first 3 bars....

John

[Ptarmigan]

Thanks for the info. Barry.

Here's another video I put together yesterday, also featuring Northumbrian Pipes, Mandolin, Dogs & North Antrim countryside.

Northumbrian Pipes & Mandolin

Cheers,
Dick

[edric]

Winster Gallop. A rather nice tune when played in A minor.

Here's my version of that: http://soundcloud.com/edric-ellis/winster-gallop-am.